» Posts Tagged ‘tutorial’
Setting marks for your actors is one of the easiest ways to ensure that everyone is on the same page. It helps make sure that not only is the blocking correct, but that the camera team knows exactly what’s going on and they can get proper focus. There are many different ways to actually set these marks for the actors once blocking is complete, and in the video below, Jared Abrams from Wide Open Camera takes a look at some of those used most often. More »
2012 saw effects plugin company Red Giant blur the line between advertisement and compelling short film with Plot Device and Tempo. But as good as both those shorts were, if I’m honest, the demonstrations which really raise my excitement levels are those that are developed in bedrooms with a mighty staff of one. Cue 21 year old Russian motion artist Philipp Pavlov, whose ‘visual experiment’ Trapcode Planet does a pretty good sales job of highlighting some of the capabilities of Red Giant’s Stockholm plugin suite partner Trapcode: More »
Learn How to Do a 3D Match Move Using the Free and Open Source Program Blender
One of the great features in Adobe After Effects CS6 is its built-in 3D camera tracker, which helps realistically integrate CG elements into footage that have a fair amount of camera or subject movement. But what if you want to do a 3D match move shot, and you can’t afford a copy of After Effects? Not a problem. Andrew Price of Blender Guru has a great hour-long video to get you started with 3D tracking and compositing CG elements in the free open source 3D program, Blender: More »
There are a good deal of relatively inexpensive rigs out there that can help you achieve a nice dolly shot. For small-scale dollying you might use Cineskates, or for shots that require a greater amount of movement with larger subjects, you might go with Rigwheels. But there might be times when the size of your subject might make these tools — and even a full dolly track setup — inadequate for the job. But with a DSLR, some planning, and a little post work, you can put together a beautiful dolly shot of a tall building: More »
Getting Started with Color Correction: Using Waveforms and Scopes with Colorist Steve Hullfish
The colorist’s job has gotten a whole lot easier since chemical baths stepped out of the picture in many cases. Non-destructive color timing is the future in which we now live — that said, the principles at work in creating properly balanced imagery is as important as ever. Each camera we may be shooting on has its own unique implications in chromatic reproduction, and the ability to delicately correct a given color mixture (regardless of its source) is key. Ironically, or not, tools such as waveform monitors and vectorscopes — staples of the bygone analog video world — are as relevant today as ever in filmmaking, if not more so. A recent presentation by noted color correction author Steve Hullfish demonstrates precisely this point, as well as the basics in using your scopes to full advantage. More »
Lighting an Interview with $26 Worth of Equipment: a Free SMAPP Tutorial from Stillmotion
The team over at stillmotion has come all the way from wedding films to producing Emmy Award-Winning television content, and along the way, they’ve done their part to try to teach as much as they can about their techniques and how to achieve professional-looking results. They eventually created the SMAPP App, which began its life as a low-cost app with quite a few in-app purchasable tutorials — now they’ve made it completely free, and in celebration, they are releasing a great low-budget tutorial we all can appreciate: how to light an interview with just $26 worth of equipment. More »
The anamorphic look has been around for a long time, but its popularity at the budget level has increased in the last few years thanks, in part, to the availability of inexpensive interchangeable lens digital cameras. If you’ve been interested in how people are getting the look and what they are using, Ryan Connolly over at Film Riot has put together a video giving an overview about your options out there and some of the advantages and disadvantages for some of the options. Click through to watch that video below: More »
Filmmaking often comes down to problem-solving, though not that every task we face is necessarily problematic. I think we arrive at many solutions by way of new, situation-specific techniques that are built by a combination of the techniques we already know. When it comes to digital effects, it can help to possess a variety of techniques in our experiential arsenal. Who knows, perhaps having learned a basic tool within a software will help time-budget an effect, or maybe even save some money? In this vein, we’re happy to bring you this After Effects tutorial from AE.Tuts+ — in it, Axel Sorenson explains how to reshape one subject’s face into another, without the use of (paid) third party plug-ins. His example uses stills, but remember, in AE, anything you can think, you can track! More »
If you just got in on a RED camera for a tremendous price, and you aren’t familiar to the RED workflow, it can be a little confusing at first, especially since RAW files offer a tremendous amount of flexbility. If you’ve got Adobe Premiere Pro CS6, RED has put together a little video showing exactly what you need to do to get started working with RED RAW files and manipulating them within the program. Check out the video below: More »
Learning to shoot timelapse videos on a DSLR can be quite daunting at first, but Preston Kanak, a frequent contributor to Philip Bloom’s site, has already produced a couple great videos giving an introduction to shooting timelapse on DSLRs. His ultimate goal is to create a series of videos and release one each month that details a bit about producing a timelapse video and what exactly goes into the process. If you happened to miss either the introduction or part 1, or you want to skip right ahead to part 2, click through to check them out. More »
9 Tutorials to Get You Started Making DVD Content in Adobe Encore
We’ve written a lot on NoFilmSchool about the tutorials available for editing, visual effects, and color correction, but there’s one area of post production we haven’t really touched upon: DVD authoring. However, once you watch these tutorials from Creative Cow’s Andrew Devis, you’ll have the knowledge you need to start creating content for your DVD’s: More »
We know we’re not the only game in town when it comes to filmmaking websites — far from it, actually — as there are lots of sites out there that share tons of great content. The often informative Revision3 web show Film Riot (hosted by Ryan Connolly) has been featured on this site before, most notably with a tutorial for a DIY slider. Now Ryan takes a look at some of his favorite filmmaking websites in the video below. More »
Beginner's Guide to DaVinci Resolve 9 and Blackmagic Cinema Camera RAW CinemaDNGs
With the Blackmagic Cinema Camera just on the horizon (sooner rather than later, hopefully), one of the big hurdles for many people is trying to understand the new RAW workflow with Cinema DNG files. Since the camera includes Blackmagic’s color grading suite, DaVinci Resolve 9, the RAW files can be brought into that program and then converted into something with a more manageable bitrate and color space for editing purposes. Colorist Dan Moran over at Philip Bloom’s blog takes a look at DaVinci, and gives a nice and simple tutorial to get you started working with and color grading RAW files. More »
One of the most coveted DIY projects around (next to perhaps the jib) is the slider. However, DIY is usually a balance between cost savings and function, and this $10-$15 slider from Ryan Connolly at Film Riot is no different. Let’s take a look at how far you can stretch your dollar for a functional slider. Hit the jump for the tutorial: More »
If you’ve ever been on a film set, you know there’s a good amount of jargon and a lot to be mindful of. Chances are there have been times when you’ve heard terms that you’re unfamiliar with, or maybe you haven’t been exactly sure about how to conduct yourself (and maybe ended up making an inadvertent faux pas). But in this video, Marc A. Hutchins of Alexander Films will show you what you need to know regarding common terminology and proper etiquette on film sets. Whether you’re just starting out in film or feel you need to brush up on the basics before you walk on set, this is essential viewing. More »
The focus here on NFS may mostly be on the creation of original pieces of work, but that doesn’t mean that we hold the art of the remixer or mash up artist in any lesser regard; it clearly takes skill to be able strip an existing piece of work down to its component parts and reassemble it as something brand new. One of the leading practitioners in this space is Australian electronic music artist Nick Bertke, better known as Pogo. Individually, and previously as a member of creative agency Reverse Enginears, Pogo has reworked films such as Alice in Wonderland, Mary Poppins, Terminator 2 and The Lord of the Rings, but personally I’d point to Lead Breakfast a Pulp Fiction remix as one of his best (unless you’re wearing headphones, I’d save this till you’re out of the office): More »
I have seen plenty of moving and powerful timelapse videos, but with any technique, it’s all about the artist behind the camera who has to know what they’re trying to capture before they even start shooting. Timelapse videos tend to be synonymous with Vimeo (along with shallow depth of field), and because of that, they seem to be routinely criticized and labeled as amateur. If you’ve ever tried to capture one with physical movement, you know that this is anything but an amateur technique, and it takes a great amount of skill to pull off dynamic movements. Preston Kanak, a contributor to Philip Bloom’s site, gives a quick overview in the video below of everything you need to get started shooting your own DSLR timelapse videos. More »
There are many tutorials for beginners and intermediates that cover shooting video, and even though I happen to think Ryan’s own Cinematography Guide is where most people should start, sometimes watching a video can be more helpful. Until tomorrow, August 10th, Lynda.com will be showing for free a 3 hour training series called Fundamentals of Video: Cameras and Shooting with Anthony Q. Artis. The series covers a wide range of topics, and all that’s required to view this normally $50 video is a Facebook like. More »
Last month I wrote about the new Adobe After Effects plug-in from Video Copilot: Element 3D. The initial demo videos were pretty amazing, but Andrew Kramer is delving deeper into Element 3D’s functionality in his most recent tutorial videos, covering the creation and manipulation of materials, powerful animation options in the Particle Replicator, environment maps, and 3D Compositing. And if that wasn’t enough, there’s also a tutorial from Serge Mustu on a Cinema 4D to Element 3D workflow and animating titles: More »
Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve 9 Beta Now Available to Download (For Free)
While the Blackmagic Cinema Camera is a great value for the hardware contained within, there is another huge benefit to buying the camera: it comes free with Blackmagic’s powerful color correction/grading program DaVinci Resolve. While the newest version, DaVinci Resolve 9, was set to be released in July, it has been slightly delayed (along with the camera). Blackmagic has, however, released a beta version of the program which is free to download from their site. Alexis Van Hurkman, a writer/director/colorist who we’ve covered here in the past with his post-NAB Resolve 9 demo, takes a look at some of his favorite features that are new to version 9. More »
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